Bismarck, North Dakota — A North Dakota man has been accused of threatening to assassinate former President Barack Obama, breaking into a National Park Service historic site, and threatening others.
Ian Patrick Stewart of Williston faces felony charges of burglary, damage to US property, terrorising, malicious mischief, threatening to kill a former US president, and three counts of threatening interstate communications, according to a federal grand jury indictment returned on Wednesday.
The accusation stated that Stewart “knowingly and wilfully threatened to kill and inflict bodily harm upon” Obama between April 20 and May 13. The document does not go into depth about the claimed threat. Stewart is also charged of threatening to injure three Williston residents in May.
According to court documents, Stewart entered Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site on May 13 when it was closed to the public, forcing the evacuation of a structure and threatening a Park Service employee and Williams County law enforcement. He was armed, according to the accusation.
Several law enforcement agencies responded, and the historic site and its access road were closed due to a “barricaded subject situation,” according to the Williams County Sheriff’s Office.
Stewart is being incarcerated at the Ward County Detention Centre in Minot. He is set to appear in court on Monday. There is no attorney listed for him in court documents. The Associated Press left him a voicemail.
Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site is located along the Missouri River on the Montana-North Dakota boundary. The site concentrates on the history of the fur trade and the post, which operated for decades in the nineteenth century.